The present subject matter relates generally to a fantasy sports system. More specifically, the present invention relates to both systems and methods for managing fantasy sports rosters and scoring fantasy sports competitions.
Fantasy sports are extremely popular throughout the world. Likely the most popular form of fantasy sport is fantasy football with close to 75 million American's taking part in at least one fantasy football competition. Fantasy football competitions are typically set up in the form of a fantasy league. Each league has a set number of teams and the managers of these teams select football players from the National Football League (NFL) to be assigned to their team. Usually when a player is selected by one team in a league, no other team may select that player and thus a good deal of thought and strategy typically goes into assembling each team's fantasy roster of NFL players. Once team rosters are established, the teams in a fantasy league are matched up in one-on-one competitions based on a rotating weekly schedule, with a winner from each matchup being determined based off which team's roster of players has scored more fantasy points. These fantasy points are awarded for positively contributing (or decremented for negatively contributing) during an NFL game (for example, scoring a touchdown). The head-to-head matchups go on for a set number of weeks and eventually a league champion is crowned based off either the best record in the league or by winning the league playoffs.
While fantasy football is very popular, as evidenced by the number of players in America alone, it is not without issues and room for improvement. For instance, when a fantasy game is played, each team manager is limited to selecting a portion of the players from their team's roster to create a starting lineup. A starting lineup consists of one player from the roster exclusively assigned to an available starting position (i.e., quarterback, running back, defensive end, 2 or 3 wide receivers, etc.). Only the players included in the starting lineup compete in the fantasy matchup and have the opportunity to accumulate fantasy points. Consequently, all unselected players do not compete in the contest and have no chance of receiving any fantasy points for that game.
This restriction of only selecting game starters becomes a much greater problem when a selected starter becomes unavailable. In the NFL, a player's playing status may change before or during the game. NFL coaches make pre-game, game-time, and in-game decisions that impact a player's playing status. Further, player injuries happen frequently during an NFL game. When a player becomes unavailable, no fantasy points can be earned for that player. Although a team's roster often includes one or more additional players that may play at the unavailable player's position, no substitution can be made during a fantasy competition.
Although the available starting positions and the values for calculating fantasy scores may differ from league to league, the basic principles of setting a fixed starting lineup and calculating fantasy points remain fundamentally unchanged across all fantasy football leagues. Some fantasy games have attempted to allow players to be designated as possible substitution players if a given situation arises, but these attempts have failed to allow for any sort of meaningful strategy to be implemented since substitutions are limited to strictly to player-for-player lineup swaps. By preselecting substitute players, a fantasy manager will almost always select the positions that typically create the most points. If any other positions have the starting player become unavailable, no substitution will be made.
Another example of an issue with fantasy sports is that the level of skill of real world players is not accounted for in current fantasy sports scoring schemes. While accomplishments in a game are attributed points (e.g., sacks, touchdowns, field goals, etc.); current fantasy sports systems do not account for the relative level of difficulty of achieving such an accomplishment. A helpful example of this issue could be that of two running backs scoring three touchdowns in a game. Normally, this would be a boon for the fantasy teams which have the running backs in their starting line-ups. However, if one of the running backs scored these touchdowns against the NFL's toughest defense and the other back was pitted against the NFL's weakest, the difficulty of achieving the feat for the back facing a great defense is left unaccounted for. Additionally in fantasy football, a field goal scored in the first quarter is worth the same amount of points as an overtime game winning field goal. This disconnect between fantasy points and the magnitude of real life player accomplishments allows for fantasy football victories to be achieved by picking players with beneficial matchups rather than based off their efforts in games.
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods for managing fantasy sports rosters and scoring fantasy sports competitions, as described herein.